


settlement.

by pyroallerdyce



Series: captured moments. [26]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, One Shot Collection, Short One Shot, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyroallerdyce/pseuds/pyroallerdyce
Summary: A month after he first realized he wanted to marry Rey, Ben woke up on a Friday morning with the lingering thoughts of a dream.  The dream had been of his wedding, and Rey had been his bride, and all was right in the world.But Ben wanted no part of a wedding like that.or:  Ben's freaking out about some things but then Han and Leia show up and shift his thoughts away from them.  Sort of.(this will make little sense if you haven't read the rest of the captured moments series.)
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: captured moments. [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602691
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	settlement.

**Author's Note:**

> #26. I'm thinking at the moment that we're going to #30 and then it'll be over, but don't hold me to that yet. But we're not going much further past that if we do. 
> 
> You all are the best for the love you give this series. You just are.
> 
> I know absolutely nothing about wrongful dismissal or suing someone for the stuff Rey sued her grandfather for, so I just made up numbers and went with it. It's probably not realistic.
> 
> and as always, if you like what you read, please let me know via a comment or kudos or bookmark so that I know I'm not writing into a void. Enjoy!

A month after he first realized he wanted to marry Rey, Ben woke up on a Friday morning with the lingering thoughts of a dream. The dream had been of his wedding, and Rey had been his bride, and all was right in the world.

But Ben wanted no part of a wedding like that.

He’d spent so long thinking that he would never get to the point of wanting to get married that he’d talked himself out of the concept of a wedding. But now there he was, wanting to ask Rey to marry him, facing the prospect of having to get married in a setting like that. Hundreds of people staring at him as he pledged to love Rey for the rest of his life.

That was enough to nearly cause a panic attack and he hadn’t even asked her yet.

She might say no.

Except he knew deep down that she wouldn’t.

He was still trying to figure out the ring situation and he definitely wasn’t going to be proposing without one. He had a feeling that his mother had his paternal grandmother’s wedding ring for him to give his future wife, remembering something from when he was younger about how she wanted him to have it after she died. But he thought that Rey deserved something that would be her own, not something that was, in Ben’s mind, attached to a woman that used to be covered in cat hair and always tried to give him cherry candies even when he told her that he didn’t like cherry-flavored things.

He’d loved his grandmother. He really had. But he did not want to give Rey her ring.

So that brought him back to the fact that he couldn’t afford to buy her one. If he mentioned that to his mother, he knew that he’d be at a jewelry store and she’d be paying for one before he could blink. She’d promised him financial help while the situation with his job and everything else was sorted out in the courts, but asking for some help paying their rent was entirely different from asking her to shell out thousands of dollars so that he could propose to Rey.

Though she would be absolutely thrilled if she knew that was his plan.

He didn’t have a plan yet either. He’d never been one for the grand, romantic gesture, so doing something elaborate was out of the question. But it needed to be special too, something that the two of them would always remember, something to tell their children about someday.

Wait.

Children?

Ben collapsed onto the sofa and tried to breathe. Rey was asleep in the bedroom and his parents were on their way over and holy fuck, he’d just thought about having children.

Eventually, he got his breathing back under control and he allowed himself to linger on that thought. Children. Children were part of marriage, generally. You got married and then you had kids. It was just the way that society worked.

Ben had never thought about having children.

He hadn’t with any of the previous women, though that wasn’t surprising. He’d never thought about marriage with any of them either. They’d never been anywhere close to this step. 

He’d dated one of them for two years and never thought of marriage or children once.

Now he’d known Rey for seven months and he wanted nothing more.

He could picture Rey as a mother. She’d be a natural at it. He didn’t know how he’d be as a father though. He did know that he could pass along his love of literature to his child, picturing himself reading to them when they were small, teaching them about the classics as they grew older, doing things like making them read _Lord of the Rings_ before they could watch it.

He snapped out of his thoughts when someone knocked on his door, and he shoved all thoughts of marriage and children to the back of his mind before answering it. Han and Leia were standing there and so he let them in, sitting down on the sofa and nervously waiting for what they had to say.

They were supposed to have an update on things for him and Rey.

Rey.

“Rey is asleep,” he said as they sat down. “And I really don’t want to wake her up. She had a rough night last night. Her shoulder is still not getting better and it’s looking more and more likely that the surgery will be necessary.”

“She must be in so much pain. I can’t even imagine,” Leia said, looking over at Han. “Let’s just start with the stuff that pertains only to Ben, and then when Rey wakes up, we’ll discuss everything else.”

Ben took seven deep breaths and forced himself to nod. Things were going to be okay. They were.

They had to be.

“The university’s governing board had a meeting this morning to discuss the fate of Chancellor Palpatine,” Han said. “After their internal investigation, Palpatine has been fired from his position. They found that he has been abusing his power for years to manipulate professors and other members of the staff to do things that he wanted them to do, most of the time setting them up to fail so that he could remove them from their positions.”

Ben sucked in another twelve deep breaths. 

Fired. 

Justice.

“Okay, so he’s been fired,” Ben said, pausing to take four more deep breaths. “What else?”

“The governing board has approached us and asked if we would be willing to withdraw the wrongful dismissal lawsuit in exchange for you receiving your job back and a lump sum of money that is lower than what we were asking for but still what they feel can be considered appropriate,” Han continued. “So we need to talk about that.”

Ben didn’t even know how much the lawsuit was asking for. He was sure that Han had probably told him, couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t have, but the number was clearly not something Ben had retained.

“What is this lump sum?” Ben made himself ask. 

He didn’t care how much it was, really. He’d take it because it meant that he’d get his job back.

And with his job back, he could afford to buy Rey a ring.

“One hundred thousand dollars,” Han said, and Ben felt like he couldn’t breathe.

One hundred thousand dollars.

One hundred thousand dollars.

Holy fuck, one hundred thousand dollars.

“What?” he got out, finally able to take eleven deep breaths.

“We’ve been asking for two-fifty,” Han said, and that made Ben’s head spin, “but they feel that since you’ll be getting your job back that a lower amount would suffice. Basically, they just want the lawsuit to go away before they have to pay you more than that.”

Ben took thirty-two deep breaths, and Leia stood and walked over to the sofa, sitting down next to him and holding his hand. “Benjamin, you don’t have to accept their deal.”

“A hundred thousand dollars,” he finally was able to say. “You think I’m going to turn down a hundred thousand dollars?”

“If we keep the lawsuit going, I can get you more,” Han said, and Leia squeezed his hand when Ben sucked in another fourteen deep breaths. “But if we proceed with the lawsuit, then I cannot guarantee that you’ll get your job back.”

More money would be nice, sure. Who wouldn’t want more money? But Ben loved his job, even when he had idiots for students, even when the past semester had been the worst one of his life. He felt more at home standing in a lecture hall before a bunch of students talking about Shakespeare and C.S. Lewis then he did anywhere else.

Well, anywhere else but Rey’s arms, but he couldn’t be there all the time.

“I want my job back,” Ben eventually said. “More money would always be a good thing, but I want my job back.”

“So you’re prepared to accept their offer,” Han said. “If you do, I can never get you a penny more for this. It’s one hundred thousand dollars and that’s it.”

“I can do so much with that money, Dad,” Ben found himself saying. “We could buy a house. I can get her a ring.”

Fuck, he hadn’t meant to say that.

Leia was grinning next to him. “A ring?”

Ben closed his eyes, took seventeen deep breaths, and then nodded. “Not a word to her. I want to surprise her.”

“Well of course you need to surprise her,” Leia said seriously. “But I want to know your plan.”

“I don’t have one yet,” Ben told her. “I have only been thinking about it for about a month.”

“And you haven’t mentioned this before? Benjamin,” Leia admonished.

“Excuse me for wanting to keep things like this to myself,” Ben countered back. “You tell her practically everything I tell you before I get a chance to do it. This is why I never want to talk to you.”

“I do not do that,” Leia said firmly, and Ben knew that he’d never change her mind about that. “But this is wonderful, Ben. I never thought we were going to reach this moment.”

“Neither did I,” Ben said truthfully.

“I think this is wonderful, son,” Han said, smiling at him. “But I need to bring the focus back to what we were talking about.”

“Of course,” Ben said, grateful that they could talk about something else for a moment. 

“I need you to tell me for certain that you want to accept their offer,” Han said, opening up the folder that he’d brought with him. “And if you do, then I need your signature on a few things.”

Ben took twenty-three deep breaths as he thought about the money again. “I accept their offer.”

Leia squeezed Ben’s hand. “I think you’re doing the right thing, Ben. And this is a very good thing too.”

“I just want my job back,” Ben murmured. “The money is secondary. I can’t believe it’s so much though.”

Han stood up. “I’m going to get these papers ready for Ben’s signature and then I’m going to have to leave and go finalize all of this.”

Leia nodded. “I’ll stay here with Ben and you can come back later to get me and talk with Rey about her options.”

“What are her options?” Ben asked, and Han looked in the folder.

“Her grandfather’s lawyer is offering up fifty thousand,” Han said. “I don’t think she should take that deal though. That won’t even cover her medical expenses, especially if she needs the surgery. I can get her a lot more if this goes before a judge.”

Ben felt like he might pass out because he couldn’t breathe. A hundred thousand for him. Fifty for Rey, but his father wanted to get her more. 

They were going from flat broke to not in an instant.

“Dad?” Ben asked as Han made his way to the table. “Why is there so much money involved in all of this?”

“There is so much money involved in this because we asked for so much,” Han explained. “If we’d sued the university for fifty thousand, then you would have walked away with about twenty or less. If we’d sued her grandfather for a similar amount, then Rey would have gotten much less. But you two deserve every penny I can get for you, so the initial amount we were asking for was high. I knew that you’d never get that amount, but I also knew that we could negotiate down to something that I felt was appropriate for what you’ve gone through.”

Ben took three deep breaths. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I really mean that.”

Han looked over at him with a smile. “I know. Come over here and sign these papers please.”

Ben stood and went to the table, signed on every line that Han told him to, and then gave his father a hug. “I love you, Dad.”

Han nodded as Ben pulled back. “I love you too, son. Now, I’m going to go get all of this taken care of. You should have a check by the end of the day.”

Ben forced himself to nod and then Han left. He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and then went and sat down next to his mother. “Ben, it’s barely past noon,” Leia said. “Now is not an appropriate time for drinking.”

“I just got told I’m being given a hundred thousand dollars, Mama,” Ben said, surprised that his voice was so steady. “I need a drink.”

Leia nodded. “I can see how that would be overwhelming. But I need you to remember that it’s a good thing.”

“I know it is,” Ben said, taking a long sip of the whiskey. “Still doesn’t mean I’m ready to handle it.”

“You can talk about it with Rey later,” Leia said. “Let’s talk about something else in the meantime.”

“Like what?” Ben asked.

“Like how you want to buy her a ring.”

Ben groaned. “I never should have said that.”

“No, you definitely should have said that,” Leia said firmly. “A proposal is a big deal in a relationship. I don’t want you to screw this up.”

All Ben could think about at that moment was how he probably was going to screw everything up. 

“We need to come up with a plan,” Leia continued.

“I need a ring before I can decide how to do it,” Ben said, taking another long sip. 

“You can make a plan before you have the ring, Benjamin. You just won’t enact it until you have the ring.”

“This isn’t going to be some grand gesture, Mama,” Ben said seriously. “So get that out of your head right now.”

“This is something that she needs to remember for the rest of her life.”

“But it’ll mean so much more if I do it in a way that’s right for us,” Ben countered back. “I’m not one for big romantic things and she knows that. I’ve been trying to do romantic dinners once a week and they’ve all ended up disasters.”

“No, sweetheart, they haven’t,” Leia soothed. “Rey has loved them.”

“Of course she’s talked to you about it,” Ben muttered.

“I talk to her this much for your best interest,” Leia replied. “It’s a challenge being with you sometimes and she needs to talk to someone who knows how to handle your challenges. Your family is a logical place for her to go.”

“I don’t know why she puts up with my emotional bullshit.”

“Because she loves you,” Leia said softly. “And she should. You’re a very easy person to love once you let someone get close to you.”

Ben took ten deep breaths. “Can we talk about something else, please? I need to think about something other than marrying her for a while. And not her potentially needing surgery either.”

“Then let’s talk about what neighborhoods might be best for looking at houses,” Leia said, pulling out her phone. 

Ben sipped at his whiskey while Leia started talking about school districts and parks within walking distance, but all he could think about was that their entire life was changed.

Just like that. 

Because of her grandfather being an absolute, worst piece of scum on the earth, motherfucking dick. 

Ben didn’t know what to think about that.


End file.
